Queerness and Fatness: Connections to Discourse more

Whether or not the medical concept of obesity is truly the dire
emergency that is touted by many public health officials, the fat female form is still viewed as something that is unfeminine, disgusting, slothful, and amoral. By virtue of a variety of media and social networking vehicles, the fat body (particularly the fat female body) is being reclaimed and celebrated. Books such as Fat!So? (Wann, 1998) and Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere (Harding & Kirby, 2009) have attempted to normalize and destigmatize the fat body and the fat experience. Along those lines, texts analyzing the biological and psychological impact of weight reduction strategies have declared that dieting contributes to illness and that a “Health At Every Size” approach is an appropriate feminist health ideal. Because of the biopsychosocial impact of fatness on individuals and society, there are correlations between fat discourse and queer theory. A comparison between the fat acceptance movement and the queer rights movement elicits a variety of reactions from various theoretical stances. The most poignant comparison is in regards to the biomedical factors involved in both identities. Members of both communities have attempted to use scientific studies to justify their identities, to attempt to legitimize their existence by claiming that their fatness (or queerness) is an immutable
piece of themselves, “the biological bedrock of contemporary visions of identify.” By searching for a “fat gene” or a “gay gene,” these people attempt to bypass discussions that would place blame. By placing their identity in the hands of genetics, they derail discussions of morality, choice, behavior, and environmental factors that also shape us.